Private hospitals across the city have been packed with patients over the past few days and many are having to wait for hours in the emergency room at some of the facilities before being allotted a bed.

Many patients are getting admitted with fever, including dengue, said hospital officials and doctors. Planned procedures which were on hold because of the doctors’ protests over the RG Kar rape and murder and the festive season are taking place now, stretching the resources, the officials said.

Sanjoy Mukherjee, 60, had to wait for around 20 hours in the emergency room of a private hospital before
he got a bed on Tuesday afternoon. Mukherjee, who is suffering from prostrate problems, went to the emergency room of the hospital off
EM Bypass around 6pm on Monday.

“We waited till 11pm to get a bed in the emergency room. Then we were told that no bed was vacant in any indoor ward,” said a family member.

Finally, Mukherjee was shifted to a ward around 2pm on Tuesday.

At other private hospitals, too, patients had to wait on wheelchairs in the emergency rooms for hours before getting a bed.

At Belle Vue Clinic, all 350 beds were occupied on Tuesday evening.

“There are patients suffering from dengue, malaria and chikungunya. Also, many patients who had deferred planned surgeries and other treatments during the protests are now coming back in large numbers as the situation has returned to normal,”
said Belle Vue CEO Pradip Tondon.

“Patients coming for admission have to wait for about three hours on average. A month back, there was no waiting time.”

Tondon said around 40 surgeries are taking place every day. Usually, the number is around 30 at Belle Vue.

Five dengue, two malaria and one chikungunya patients were admitted at Belle Vue on Tuesday.

Many doctors at private hospitals had taken part in one-day pen-down protests
as part of the agitation after the rape and murder of a 31-year-old postgraduate trainee doctor at RG Kar Medical College and Hospital on August 9.

At the RN Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences, the bed occupancy has gone up from around 60 per cent during the protests to 75 per cent.

“There is a sharp drop in the number of patients from Bangladesh. But the occupancy has shot up because of the pent-up demand during the protests and the festive
season,” said R. Venkatesh, group COO, Narayana Health, which runs the RN Tagore hospital.

Apart from this, there is a sudden surge in admission of patients suffering from fever, including dengue.

“In the last few weeks, there has been a steady flow of dengue patients along with those suffering from other mosquito-borne diseases. Some of the dengue patients are becoming critical,” said Chandramouli Bhattacharya, an infectious disease specialist at Peerless Hospital.

He is treating four patients suffering from dengue, three from scrub typhus and one from malaria.

At Peerless Hospital, the bed occupancy has gone up to 80 per cent from around 65 per cent one month back.

“Not just dengue and malaria, patients suffering from other fevers such as influenza are also getting admitted,” said Sudipta Mitra, the chief executive of Peerless Hospital.